Executive Summary
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) people live across the globe. However, the extent to which sexual and gender diversity is socially accepted and LGBTI people are included in a country’s laws and policies remains vastly uneven. Both public attitudes and legal inclusion have important implications for development. Anti-LGBTI stigma can lead to discriminatory practices and laws that promote violence, poor health outcomes, weaker institutions of governance, and lower economic productivity. Conversely, societies that are more socially accepting and inclusive of LGBTI people tend to be more democratic and economically prosperous. A clear understanding of the pathways through which a country can become more protective of LGBTI people is important for designing and implementing strategies of change that support inclusive development.
Using the LGBTI Global Acceptance Index and novel Legal Environment Indices that measure a country’s laws regarding sexual orientation (SO) and gender identity, gender expression, and sex characteristics (GIESC), respectively, this report provides a first-of-its-kind statistical approach to understand the various pathways through which countries become more or less inclusive of LGBTI people.
Key Findings and Recommendations
- Social acceptance is strongly linked to legal inclusion and may reflect an important precondition for changing law and policy.
- The relationship between social acceptance and legal inclusion has grown stronger over time.
- Stakeholders should pursue dual strategies of cultivating public support for LGBTI people and their rights in addition to pursuing legal change.
- Stakeholders seeking to expand SOGIESC protections should consider the various pathways through which policies are likely to develop.
- SO protections generally advance by starting with decriminalization. Employment protections or broader nondiscrimination protections are likely the next policy development. However, some countries may advance with employment protections first.
- GIESC protections are most likely to advance by first allowing for changing gender markers and establishing a formal legal gender recognition process or healthcare protections. Broader nondiscrimination protections on the basis of gender identity and expression are likely to be the next policy development.
- Over time, there has been significant progress in both SO and GIESC legal inclusion. That is, there has been a decline in the number of countries that are the least inclusive. According to the SO Legal Environment Index, 57% of countries in 1990 were the least inclusive compared to 30% of countries in 2023. According to the GIESC Legal Environment Index, 90% of countries were the least inclusive in 1990 compared to 51% of countries in 2023.
- The likelihood that a country will pass some GIESC protections doubles if a country decriminalizes homosexuality and is 6.6 times more likely if a country has full SO protections.
- Countries that have the least SO protections are more likely to gain some GIESC protections in 10 years on average, whereas countries that have at least decriminalized homosexuality are more likely to gain some GIESC protections in five years on average.
- Stakeholders should carefully guard law and policy gains, though evidence suggests that once legal change occurs, it is difficult to undo.
- Further research should examine:
- The complex interconnections between institutions, acceptance, and policy development.
- The specific conditions under which SO and GIESC policy developments are most interconnected and when they may develop asymmetrically.
- Pathways of development for other SO-related policies, including hate crime laws, regulations of so-called conversion therapy practices, reproductive rights of same-sex couples, and legal protections for political participation of candidates based on their sexual orientation.
- Pathways of development for other GIESC-related policies, including legal protections against discrimination in sports for transgender or intersex people; legal protections for transgender or intersex people serving in the military; age restrictions on accessing legal gender recognition; reproductive rights for transgender, non-binary, and intersex people; legal protections against nonconsensual genital surgeries and other harmful medical practices on intersex children; and legal protections for political participation of transgender and intersex candidates.